Well, I hope they also bring over the option to turn it hide it or turn it off completely.
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iPadOS 19 Rumored to Show Mac-Like Menu Bar When Connected to Magic Keyboard
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I have been using M1 iPad pro with magic keyboard, apple pencil 2, and my main usage is mostly notetaking for productivity. Othe than that, it is just a youtube or web browser. Do not give that “look at new calculator app with apple pencil”. This calculator app does not do any matrix related calculation for me. Let me see if future iPadOs can give the productivity functionality that I need. This far, iPad pro is equal to basic iPad due to OS.
Shame Apple won't allow you to optionally boot to a Mac desktop just because they want a locked down app environment that allows them to tax all app transactions on every device.
Looks like a 12” ibook G4
When an iPad running iPadOS 19 is connected to a Magic Keyboard, a macOS-like menu bar will appear on the screen, according to the leaker Majin Bu.
This change would further blur the lines between the iPad and the Mac. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman previously claimed that iPadOS 19 will be "more like macOS," with unspecified improvements to productivity, multitasking, and app window management, and the addition of a macOS-like menu bar would certainly align with that overall plan.
In a blog post today, the leaker also claimed that iPadOS 19 will enhance Stage Manager, the feature that lets you use multiple apps at once on an external display. The leaker said that Stage Manager will work more seamlessly, but they did not provide any specific details about the alleged improvements. They also said that iOS 19 will enable at least a basic version of Stage Manager on iPhone models with a USB-C port.
The first beta of iPadOS 19 should be available after the WWDC 2025 keynote on June 9, but some new features are not enabled until later betas.
Majin Bu has a mixed track record with Apple rumors, with some hits and some misses.
Article Link: iPadOS 19 Rumored to Show Mac-Like Menu Bar When Connected to Magic Keyboard
The more Apple does this the less I think they will ever allow full Mac OS on a portable. They will go so far as to let you run Mac apps on the screen in iOS but you HAVE TO BUY A MAC TO USE IT. They will make a feature that lets you run a mouse and apps in IOS but at the price of you having to own a modern Mac to have it work. Its always a grift to get you to buy another device you don't really need.
I don’t think that guy has used MacOS much because it’s in the app settings as you would naturally assume. No menubar required, just CMD + , .
Im talking about apps like the weather. Why does it have stuff shoved in the menu bar that on iPadOS, it isn’t.
This is clearly in preparation of adding a notch. 
I'd love my iPad to be my daily driver. The dream is getting closer every year it seems, even if it's just a dream.
Considering you could do all that on a Blue and White G3 from 2000, yes.
Since the A16 is the bottom of the iPad line now, how does that compare to a 2014 Mac mini for example?
Two windows will do. Just so you can see what is in both windows at the same time. They don't even need to be resizable, a split screen will be fine. An Apple IIgs can manage this.
No I'm not sending my data to the cloud. Why not? This is becoming way too common,
"Researchers at Cybernews have uncovered a major privacy breach involving WorkComposer, a workplace surveillance app used by over 200,000 people across countless companies. The app, designed to track productivity by logging activity and snapping regular screenshots of employees' screens, left over 21 million images exposed in an unsecured Amazon S3 bucket, broadcasting how workers go about their day frame by frame."
I actually found it very confusing to work with iPadOS when connected to a keyboard, and even more so when I could share data and windows between them and my Mac.
It looks kinda the same, but it works differently.
iPadOS has an identity crisis, especially when it’s used more as a laptop (typically iPad Pro).
At least the regular iPad has clear product positioning: light computing, media consumption, touch first, lower cost device. Greet for kids, great for boomers also.
The iPad Pro is expensive, aims to compete with a laptop but doesn’t quite get there with its locked operating system, clunky stage manager and inferior connectivity. But at the same time it has this awesome display and is amazing for artists who use it with a pen.
I don’t know where rhe Air sits. It lacks the awesome display but is more expensive. Not sure why it exists.
I’m sceptical about iPadOS 19. But I’d like to be proven wrong.
It looks kinda the same, but it works differently.
iPadOS has an identity crisis, especially when it’s used more as a laptop (typically iPad Pro).
At least the regular iPad has clear product positioning: light computing, media consumption, touch first, lower cost device. Greet for kids, great for boomers also.
The iPad Pro is expensive, aims to compete with a laptop but doesn’t quite get there with its locked operating system, clunky stage manager and inferior connectivity. But at the same time it has this awesome display and is amazing for artists who use it with a pen.
I don’t know where rhe Air sits. It lacks the awesome display but is more expensive. Not sure why it exists.
I’m sceptical about iPadOS 19. But I’d like to be proven wrong.
What an absolutely stupid idea. What value would a "menu bar" add to an OS that has a mature notification center, centralized settings, etc.? Last thing in the world I want is for my iPad Pro to have a status bar I can't make go away sitting on top of the screen all the time.
As to the rest of this -- Stage Manager works great, and feels very Mac-ish as it is currently -- on iPadOS. I can easily switch back and forth between apps with 3finger swipes, and when I need to have a few with overlapping windows, "Add Another Window" works great. Most importantly, there's no performance penalty, unlike using Dex on the Samsung Tabs I moved away from.
On macOS, Stage Manager is useless except as an indirect means of disabling "click to show wallpaper".
One of the things in this rumor that really concerns me is the "Plug a phone into a USBC monitor" etc. flow. Samsung tried this, and it failed miserably, in part, because very few people want to run literal phone apps on a monitor. This can only sorta work if the phone has the iPad version of the app installed. (Samsung's downfall was that Android doesn't have "tablet apps"; as a result the phone had to use a large amount of its capabilities just making apps designed for a portrait screen kindasorta look ok in resizable windows on the external display.)
Of all the rumors about the upcoming operating systems, this is the one that I most hope is wrong.
As to the rest of this -- Stage Manager works great, and feels very Mac-ish as it is currently -- on iPadOS. I can easily switch back and forth between apps with 3finger swipes, and when I need to have a few with overlapping windows, "Add Another Window" works great. Most importantly, there's no performance penalty, unlike using Dex on the Samsung Tabs I moved away from.
On macOS, Stage Manager is useless except as an indirect means of disabling "click to show wallpaper".
One of the things in this rumor that really concerns me is the "Plug a phone into a USBC monitor" etc. flow. Samsung tried this, and it failed miserably, in part, because very few people want to run literal phone apps on a monitor. This can only sorta work if the phone has the iPad version of the app installed. (Samsung's downfall was that Android doesn't have "tablet apps"; as a result the phone had to use a large amount of its capabilities just making apps designed for a portrait screen kindasorta look ok in resizable windows on the external display.)
Of all the rumors about the upcoming operating systems, this is the one that I most hope is wrong.
Not sure what you mean by "locked operating system" ? It's not "locked" at all - the limitations that iPad apps face are artificial ones, placed on them by their own companies who don't want to cannibalize the sales of a $200 desktop application with a $2 tablet app.
I can't imagine why you found it confusing to work with iPadOS when connected to a keyboard. I do it all the time. Turn Stage Manager on, set the dock to autohide, and just hide that other thing. Grab the mouse on the mac, or swipe the trackpad on the iPad Magic Keyboard, and you're in business. I alternate between my mouse, mac trackpad and iPad Magic Keyboard trackpad constantly throughout the day, using which ever "mouse/keyboard" combination is closest at the moment.
If I wanted the same apps on both of them, I could use SideCar to just extend a desktop from the mac onto the iPad screen, but that's not what I find most useful, since for a lot of workloads, that would require using plain Web-based tools on a Mac, the user experience is actually better on the iPad Pro using an app.
When traveling, my iPad Pro is my primary machine. It's much more portable, has a touch/pen screen and the Magic Keyboard. I leave my MacBook home, doing 90% of my work just on the iPad Pro, and the rest, I'm either ssh'ing or RDM'ing into the mac over my Tailnet (virtual lan overlaid on the actual networks using Tailscale.)
Great point, macOS is both complex and complicated to most users who are mobile first. A lot of us commenting here probably grew up with desktop PC, with the likes of files, folders, and a certain "1990's" UI paradigm. Like it or not, all of our research unanimously point to a very different mental paradigm for most of the average users today, raised on smart phones. People think of their data on a computer as "a bucket" instead of neatly organized files and folders. They prefer to jump through apps instead of performing actions on files. So macOS is definitely more powerful, but it comes with a lot of learning curve for someone who grew up with iOS.
The other point you made about making macOS touch friendly, it's not hard on the surface. Windows readily made its entry into touchscreen convertibles in a hasty way, but anyone who's used an iPad knows how clunky and unnatural it feels to use a Windows tablet, even if is flagship Surface line.
When you're touching the UI and holding the device up close, there are a lot of assumptions we have to make in the details. From table stakes like information density, tap target resizing, down to fundamental things like input modality (to compensate for the lack of states like hover, right click, etc.) to prioritization of features based on what they'd mostly use the device for.
I definitely think Apple could've totally done a better job, but unfortunately I think they are also held back by the requirement to not cannibalize their Mac line.
The regular iPad also tries very hard to be a "real computer" nowadays. So much going on all the time, no home button, no way to turn off multitasking = too many gestures for grandma and kids. I found the positioning of the first handful of iPad iterations much clearer because they didn't even try to compete with Macs.
I'm with the Ubuntu user earlier in this thread, and will try a 2-in-1 PC as our next portable "family computer".
Getting MacOS on iPad is the end goal (or at least option to dual boot the OS). Apple for some reason is dragging its feet over this. Argument about cannibalizing Air sale is missed if you don't need keyboard. Fully specced iPad is much more expensive than fully specced Air and a lot of people would get iPad over Air just because it has no keyboard.
C'mon Apple, don't be mean.
Windows on a tablet is great tool. Don't let Apple fool users.
C'mon Apple, don't be mean.
Windows on a tablet is great tool. Don't let Apple fool users.
These rumours normally miss the wood for the trees. It’s likely that Stage Manager itself will integrate some sort of menu bar into the interface which will then just turn on automatically when using a keyboard or manually via control centre. With all the antitrust going around there is no way it will be limited directly to Apple branded accessories.
Infinitely resizeable windows are limited due to the way iPadOS apps are coded; this is why they have to obey the invisible grid, so the aspect ratio can be controlled by the OS. As with everything some users think is a ‘limitation’, it has been done with purpose by Apple. I’m not saying its great, just that there is method to all of their madness
A bigger question is what an iPad will even do with a menu bar? Apps are not coded to have a ‘File dropdown’ and so on; what will they use it for?
Infinitely resizeable windows are limited due to the way iPadOS apps are coded; this is why they have to obey the invisible grid, so the aspect ratio can be controlled by the OS. As with everything some users think is a ‘limitation’, it has been done with purpose by Apple. I’m not saying its great, just that there is method to all of their madness
A bigger question is what an iPad will even do with a menu bar? Apps are not coded to have a ‘File dropdown’ and so on; what will they use it for?